Truancy For Beginners
by XxHot92xX
Summary: The instructions were simple. Find an organization. Establish trust. Leave in pieces. But Tobi always had the need to add that extra pinch of salt. TobiDei .


**Title:** Truancy For Beginners  
**Description:** The instructions were simple. Find an organization. Establish trust. Leave in pieces. But Tobi always had the need to add that extra pinch of salt.  
**Warnings:** Manga spoilers  
**Disclaimer:** No ownage, no sue-age

- - -

Something hypnotized

The moment that it's mine

- - -

Tobi had come to tolerate the tenant residing in his head. He was accustomed to the scathing remarks and blatant jeers slathered across the inner linings of his mind, and the threats, orders and screams – the screams that banged and clamored inside him, shaking him, tearing him, breaking him apart. He was used to the ghostly hushes when he lay awake, insomnia rocking him to and fro, the whispers of how he would overtake him, become him.

Tobi lived with it. He survived with the threaded promise of gaining back the past he once had, the return of sepia-drenched memories and the explanation of strangers' faces that cooed to him on cold nights _do not fret, Obito._ But for now, in the present where his hands shook and where he hid the fact that he was_ nobody_, Tobi listened to him. He followed his acute instructions. He blindly cast his eyes astray as his fingers slowly leaked to numbness.

The black-haired nin was not told the greater scheme behind the entrance into Akatsuki. Tobi merely placed the mask upon his face (_that hideous face that no one could love_), took the garb of noir and crimson, and let the baritone octave of insanity keep him from sleep. All seemed according to plan, _his_ plan anyway – Tobi lurked inside the shadows of the headquarters, took names, ignored the aching gnawing in his chest to talk to the others, befriend them, and tried desperately not to scream.

But Deidara had never entered into Madara's calculations.

It was first the blonde hair, the golden _swish _that rounded the corner, that stilled Tobi's joints. _Familiar, familiar._ Flashes of toothy grins, squinted eyes, and important cloaks of ivory and red pictured together in his mind for the briefest of seconds. The newest Akatsuki paused in the hallway, half-in and half-out of reach from the light that dimly scattered past the grime of the window pane. The aureate-haired nin paid him no heed, simply walking past him without so much as a lift from his cobalt eyes.

Another flash and a memory tinkering past his lids – the feeling of security and hope along with the far-past memory of a man with similar features. Who was it? _Who was it?_

Surely, no one important.

_Don't speak. Find leaks in the system. Take each one down. All in time. _"I'm issuing you a new partner."

-

Flames of azure. "_What? _I've been doing a damn good job on my own, un."

The tenor of authority. "No one can handle all of this alone. He will be here shortly."

Deidara bit out, "I can handle myself _fine _alone. Tell the bastard to find someone el–"

Pein raised his smoldering dun orbs to where Tobi stood in the doorway, half-in and half-out; his one foot precariously resting on the threshold, as if toeing his options to either battle or flee. The new recruit raised his head from where he was counting the many tiles leading to the Leader's residing door. Pein gestured to enter while the same nin from the hallway turned around to glare. The blonde locks falling down his back stung his mind, the mounting frustration of just _who he was_ momentarily blinded him. Quick to recover, and with a harsh chastising echoing in his head, Tobi cautiously stepped into the "office".

Deidara scowled and turned back to the Leader, hands clenched tight at his side. Tobi was careful to stand off to his far right, away from where the slightly older man couldn't bite him.

Pein didn't seem to notice Deidara's frothy glower, nor the way his cobalt eyes flickered with dangerous heat. "Your new partner is Tobi-san. You are responsible to enlighten him on our goal here and to not kill him."

The sepia-locked head haunch made sure to pierce Deidara with his own stare, leaning in, "Understood."

Tobi noted that this was not a question.

Pein seemed to sit back in his own body again as he closed his eyes. When reopened, they returned to only simmering as he calmly ordered in a bored aura, "Greet each other accordingly."

The masked Akatsuki whipped his head to the blonde nin, wondering whether or not to provide his hand for a good-natured introduction or just to stand back and regard from afar.

Tobi chose the wrong option.

"Hi! I'm Tobi."

Deidara grimaced at the proffered hand in disgust. Without attempting to put aside his growing resentment, he grounded out, "Deidara." His hands remained at his sides.

Slowly, Tobi lowered his arm, glad that he didn't have to worry about Deidara seeing the coiling hurt wounding in his eye, before he reached around to the back of his head, scratching it sheepishly. "Heh."

Before the clay-sculptor could poof Tobi away into oblivion with his _look_, Pein spoke in an exasperated tone.

"Dismissed."

-

_Find the weakness, break him down._

Tobi lay awake, curled up on his side with the itchy navy wool sheets pooled around his legs. The bolts in his arm groaned as he breathed in and out, eye focused on the floorboards below. He traced the knotholes, the obvious boards that would creak when pushed, and Tobi sighed. Madara pressed harder onto his skull.

_Break him, let him fall._

The masked Akatsuki paid no heed to the gravelly baritone sliding across his fingers, and raised his eyes to where his new partner resided. Blonde locks fell across the dark sheets, creating a shade of sunlight in the opaque room. The older nin breathed slowly, hands still clenched; he was prepared to punch through the jugular of anyone who was tempted to lay a breath upon him. Tobi tilted his head, charcoal iris roving over Deidara's swollen lips, fascinated how they whispered muted words; to perhaps the dust motes flying overhead or even the blushing moon veiled by ugly grey.

Tobi, however, back in the dusty recesses of his mind where even Madara could not touch and taint, believed that maybe his newfound partner was hushing quiet lullabies to him. The black-haired nin sat up suddenly, intent on listening to Deidara. He liked this Deidara so much more than the one who was likely to spat and glare. This Deidara was soft and gentle, the clenched fists merely a half-hearted facade, and Tobi wanted to pay close attention and not miss this.

He watched how the former Iwa-nin gasped and sighed, whispered and screamed. Tobi could feel the nightmare crawling from the blonde nin's lips and empathized – his own demon caressing and touching. And in that moment where the blackness of Madara's hand was covering his mouth, and where Deidara was not so scary after all, Tobi finally placed just who the artist resembled.

"Senpai."

* * *

**A/N:** Wow, haven't submitted anything in a WHILE, huh? This is just something old that's been stewing in my documents. I have some more drabbles that are intertwined with this, so I may add them later on in the form of chapters.

Reviews are optional, yet highly reccommended by nine out of ten doctors =D

- _- H. 92_


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